Gemma McNeil-Walsh - 5RB Barristers

Gemma joined 5RB in 2021 on successful completion of pupillage. She accepts instructions across all areas of Chambers’ work, including defamation, privacy, harassment, freedom of information, and data protection.

Her recent work includes:

Stadler v Currys Group Limited: acting for D at (1) a High Court hearing seeking to strike out a low-level data breach claim brought in misuse of private information, breach of confidence, data protection and negligence, where three causes of action were successfully struck-out and one transferred; and (2) at the County Court hearing successfully seeking to allocate the remaining data protection claim to the Small Claims Track.
Phone Hacking Litigation: acting for Mirror Group Newspapers in claims brought by celebrities and other individuals concerning accusations of unlawful news-gathering activities (2022).
R v Furlong & Others: acting on behalf of the Sun to lift a reporting restriction made under s45 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act

Gemma also has an extensive pre-publication practice. She currently provides pre-publication advice to The Sun, The Mail, and a leading publishing house. She has also provided pre-broadcast advice to Channel 5 on legal and Ofcom compliance.

During pupillage, Gemma’s supervisors were Jacob Dean, Victoria Jolliffe, Victoria Simon-Shore and Jonathan Scherbel-Ball.

Gemma was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Gray’s Inn in July 2018, where she is an Atkin Senior Scholar. Prior to pupillage at 5RB, she worked in the Court of Appeal as the Judicial Assistant to Lord Justice Hamblen (as he then was) and Lady Justice Nicola Davies. She previously worked as a Research Assistant at the British Institute of International Comparative Law and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, and as a Digital Production Editor at various newspapers including the Sunday Times, the Guardian and the Mail on Sunday.

Awards and scholarships

The Atkin Scholarship (Gray’s Inn)
Bingham Scholarship (Gray’s Inn)

Called

2018 Called to the Bar of England and Wales

Education

Graduate Diploma in Law, BPP Law School - 2015-2017
Bar Professional Training Course,, The City Law School - 2017-2018
MSc (Social Science of the Internet), Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford - 2014-2015
BA Development Studies and Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London - 2011-2014

Areas of work

Privacy and Confidence
Defamation and Malicious Falsehood
Data Protection and Information Law
Harassment
Injunctive Relief
Pre-publication Advice
Media regulation
Reporting the Courts and Contempt